I was not born with the girl-handwriting gene.

Don't get me wrong; my handwriting is neat. Some people have difficulty reading it, yes, but it's very organized and clean. I write in tiny upright cursive, smaller and straighter for detailed notes in math, then larger and just the slightest bit more sprawling for English and music. It's quick, it's comfortable, it's fairly uniform. It serves me well.

It is not, however, the Bible-journal calligraphy Pinterest tells me I should create. When it builds prayers and outlines thoughts of God, it doesn't beg to be colored or embellished. It isn't worthy of a place on a blog about feminine Christianity or an article about Christian femininity. It doesn't fit into a Lifeway catalog.

For years I fought to become a "Pinterest Christian." I started small, color-coding verses in a childhood Bible, then I sketched and colored my prayers when the words became difficult. Isn't that what I was supposed to do? I started a half dozen prayer journals, every time approaching the pages armed with whatever markers and colored pencils I could round up around my house. In college, I started Bible journaling, sketching my thoughts in the margins as well as I could. Everything and everyone seemed to be telling me that that was what it meant to authentically follow Christ as a woman, that it was the most genuine way to devote my female mind to the pursuit of Him.

This past summer, I gave up on all of that. It was as if a part of me stepped away and said that enough was enough, that if Christianity required journals full of calligraphy and watercolors, then I couldn't participate and mean what I said or did. That realization hurt, and I suddenly felt excluded from the community of faith in which I had become so comfortable.

That hurt is fading now. Not too long ago, I had a revelation of sorts: God created in me a mind that rebels against anything it perceives as an avoidance of words. My mind is programmed to love writing essays and reading philosophy, and I didn't decide that.

So I began to rework my approach. I am keeping a prayer journal, but differently now. In my first entry, I wrote: "You have given me a love, a mind, and a passion for literature, art, and philosophy, and unless I and everyone I know have misunderstood You for years, I am meant to use it. The mind You molded to me is not at its best in casual words; to love You with all my mind must mean to dedicate its best to you. In order to do that, I am turning my study of philosophy toward your trail as well." When I finish moving into my dorm, I plan to put those words over my bed, and I hope that they remind me that I will not please God by shunning the gifts and strengths He has given me. It seems incredibly simple at the moment, but I know all too well how easily I forget.

I don't know yet just how this will go, but I already feel more at peace. I am Christian; I am female; I am largely left-brained. That's okay. In stepping away from watercolor culture, I may find myself unable to find thousands of prayer journal ideas on Pinterest, but I won't worry that my own prayers are wrong or incompetent. My journaling Bible will have definitions, series of questions, cross-references and names of interesting authors in place of elaborate and beautiful retellings of Scripture, but I will never again look at the ink I've left in my wake and feel that it was utterly useless to me. I will not be the girl I thought I was supposed to become, but I will be the woman I was made to be. Thank God for that.